This past weekend, Streetmosphere welcomed Curious Gage to Old Town Square. Curious Gage is an a cappella group that puts a spin on popular instrumental band pieces. Being an a cappella group, Curious Gage only uses sounds that can be made with the voice. They sing – obviously! – but also use different techniques that one wouldn’t normally think could be in a vocal performance.

Curious Gage’s bass, Tom Miles, held up the performance on Sunday by using percussive beats and by providing the bass line to the vocal parts. Miles was literally both the upright bass and the drum set of this performing ensemble. It was incredible to get to listen to him perform, because at first, I didn’t believe what was coming out of his mouth. I had no idea that the human voice could sound so much like an upright bass.

At one point in their three hour set, Nic Widhalm, Curious Gage’s baritone, performed a “drum set” solo where he used his voice to produce sounds like beat boxing. He even incorporated different sounding drum heads that alter the pitch frequency, causing the sound to be high or low. How you add pitch into a beat boxing/drum solo, I have no idea – but he did it!

All four members of Curious Gage have very powerful voices and each had a song or two in their set that allowed them to sing out and be the solo voice. Carleen Widhalm, soprano, performed pieces that showcased her sweet voice, while also allowing her to sing up in the stratosphere; Lindsay Rom, alto, brought Old Town Square down with her powerhouse voice that the audience couldn’t resist saying “WOW!” to.

This ensemble performed works that we all know – Tom Petty’s Freefallin’ to Nothing by The Script, but put a unique spin on them. There really isn’t a good way to describe the type of sound that Curious Gage is capable of. You just have to see them live to get the full experience of their performance.

Curious Gage performs again with Streetmosphere on Friday, July 13 at 5:30 p.m., and again on Saturday, July 21 at 12:30 p.m. Both performances will be located at Charming Charlie’s in Front RangeVillage. All performances by Streetmosphere are FREE, so if you’re at all intrigued by this blog, please go check them out!